Tuesday, March 24, 2020

Supporting Mom & Pop Stores

Small mom & pop stores are finding it harder than ever to survive in this economic climate. Because of ever increasing rents, the competition from internet shopping and now the threat of Covid-19 many stores are facing the threat of bankruptcy. wesurvived.nyc is a crowdsourced project to document store changes in New York City. The project is designed to support small businesses in New York and advocate for rent stability.

wesurvived.nyc is documenting store front changes in NYC in order to record stores which have closed or changed hands. It is also recording the survival stories of small businesses and local stores which are managing to succeed against all the odds. You can help wesurvived.nyc by recording your memories of disappeard mom-and-pop stores, cafes, and community spaces or by telling your story of how a successful business has survived.

To tell your story of a local store you first need to click on a neighborhood on the map. You can then select the store on Street View. Once you've found a store (or disappeared store) on Street View you can enter details of the store's disappearance or the story of how it has managed to survive. If you just want to browse the histories of store changes that have been recorded by others you need to select the 'Memories & Stories' tab. This will allow you to browse the stores submitted by other people or the notable changes to store fronts which have been identified by others in NYC.